Posted
by
Soulskillon Saturday November 01, 2008 @03:40AM
from the diverse-field-of-choices dept.

cyrus_zuo points out the October edition of the Indie Game Round-up, where four reviewers give their opinions on ten recent independently produced games. This month, their top choice was Multiwinia, a casual, abstract take on multiplayer RTS. The second installment of the Strong Bad series also scored high, as did a side-scrolling platformer called Archibald's Adventures.
"The levels are short and sweet, the graphics are cartoon-y and clear and the challenges fit in wonderfully with the paradigm of a young hero attached to a skateboard. The puzzles are all timing and creative thinking and can really be taken on by anyone of any skill level. Also, since levels can tackled in any order (you have large chunks available at a time), you can jump around if you get stuck."

I still have a feeling that the indie crowd can step up to the plate and pick up where Bladurs Gate left off... 2d by the way side and gimmicks for miles... I've always held faith that independent developers or kids making mods would end up fulfilling this ginormous gaping hole... It started with the PS1 and N64... 2d bad 3d good. Well I disagree, just as I disagree with nearly any independent game I find on XLA. They seem to cater to a crowd already well served by emulators, they just add the fancy graphics and extra buttons to press. But they never seem to bring the greatness in all but a few genres. And I'm not trying to say 2d is the only way to make a game, but what I am saying is that in the shift to go from 2d to 3d people lost something, something that truly made games worth raving about to people 10-15-20 years later... its found here and again, but never truly captured as it once was in it's pre-3d focus era.

It could be called a memory game, mental challenge or puzzle. It's been shown in a peer-reviewed study to improve working memory and fluid intelligence (one component of "IQ"). This is huge because intelligence was previously thought to be static or immutable.

More research is currently underway at multiple universities to confirm the positive effect on fluid intelligence. You can see the results for yourself by practicing this game 20 minutes 4-5 times a week for a few weeks.

This could be hitting the front page of your morning paper in a few months once more research is published.

These are 2d retro games. But the level of creativity is astounding. I found some of them to be a bit weird, but others are total gems. Mu-cade has got to be my favorite. It took me a long time to get into it, but once I did I realized how deep this game is. You can literally spend 10s of hours devising new strategies. And the games generally last less than 5 minutes which means that it's great for people who don't have all day to game.

There are not that many weirdo's experimenting with weird games these days.

There are plenty. However, the set of people who succeed in making the game, find the concept actually works, polish it enough to hold a new player's interest, explain it well enough to hook people, make it run on as many systems as possible, run a website, and actively market it to get people to notice it, is much smaller.